NYC Restaurant Manager Resists Vaccinated Only Rules: ‘Hard to Go Up Against a Machine’

Not every New York City restaurant is happy with the citywide vaccination mandate that took effect Monday and a few are voicing opposition to it.

Some worry the rules will prove unenforceable and displease tourists while local eateries work to recover after a year and a half of lockdowns, the New York Post reported Monday.

“Others say they won’t even try to enforce the new rule beginning Sept. 13, when city inspections at restaurants, indoor entertainment venues and gyms are slated to begin,” the article read.

Just after Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) announced the rules, a sign was placed in the window at Pasticceria Rocco, a pastry shop and diner in Brooklyn.

“We do not discriminate against any customer based on sex, gender, race, creed, age, vaccinated or unvaccinated. All customers who wish to patronize are welcome,” the black and white sign read.

A NYC restaurant manager goes renegade in the face of new vaccination-proof rules https://t.co/55XEBOg1o7 pic.twitter.com/LjXE4xaeRd

— New York Post (@nypost) August 17, 2021

“For me, it’s not political — most of my customers are vaccinated,” Mary Josephine Generoso, who manages the business, stated.

“It’s about civil liberties and freedoms. Now we have to be in a society where people can’t roam freely and enter my place of business if they want to? How is that OK in the United States of America?” she continued.

Generoso told the Post she has not talked with officials regarding the rules and she was not sure what she would do if they came to the door.

“It’s scary. I feel like we will be made an example of,” Generoso added. “It is really hard to go up against a machine, and that’s what we are up against. Honestly, I put the sign up because I was hoping that other business owners would also have the courage to speak out. But it is mainly our customers who have reached out in support.”

De Blasio announced the “Key to NYC Pass” initiative August 3, a vaccine passport program prohibiting unvaccinated people from entering gyms, restaurants, and entertainment venues in the city, warning it is time for citizens to view being vaccinated as “literally necessary to living a good and full and healthy life,” Breitbart News reported.

Meanwhile, Stratis Morfogen, who owns the Brooklyn Chop House and the Brooklyn Dumpling Shop, also expressed displeasure regarding the rules.

“What are we, the police? Asking our diners to ‘Show us ze papers,’ like in Nazi Germany?” Morfogen stated, adding the mandate “is against our constitutional rights and everything we stand for.”